Author: John Branston

Categories
Opinion

dressed to code

The Back to School sale is in full swing. Clusters of teenage girls glob around racks of the latest fashions, swaying to the beat of a music video playing overhead. Serving up a buffet of up-to-the-minute trends, the sales offer sleeveless mock turtlenecks, halters, tank tops, hipster jeans, rocker tees. Bedazzled is still in, as is camouflage. Baby polo shirts are back, as are plaid skirts and pants, ’80s-influenced belts, and the usual jeans and cotton tees.

The girls are wearing jean shorts and tube tops, one-shoulder tops, and tiny tees that read “Not if you were the last guy on the planet” or “Angel,” in glitter.

And with places like Old Navy advertising their miniskirts “the shorter the better,” how does teen fashion compare with school dress codes?

The general code for area high schools, both public and private, centers on creating a safe and distraction-free environment. No short shorts, nothing that pictures or advertises an illegal substance, no gang colors.

At some private and public schools the issue is moot. Students wear a school uniform. At other schools students in inappropriate dress will be asked to change. And most of those teenage girls at the mall won’t be able to wear the fashions to school that they see in Seventeen, YM, and Teen People.

Here are some general guidelines compiled from dress codes around the city and county. Check with your school for specifics.

Categories
News

EVANS REVERSED IN ARENA SUIT

The Tennessee Court of Appeals Friday reversed Chancellor Walter Evans‘ ruling and injunction against the city of Memphis and Shelby County in the NBA arena lawsuit.

The decision of the three-judge panel, which heard oral arguments Monday, is a victory for the city and county and a defeat for lawyer Duncan Ragsdale, who filed the original lawsuit. Ragsdale could still appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court.

The appeals court said the city and county properly complied with legislation creating a sports authority and that a new arena is a valid public purpose.

“We conclude that the resolutions of the governmental entities and the contracts executed pursuant thereto are for a public purpose as construed by the Tennessee court and the decisions of courts in other states,” the judges said in a 21-page ruling.

Evans ruled in July in Ragsdale’s favor in a strongly worded ruling that took the city and county and even Ragsdale by surprise. The chancellor said there would have to be a referendum with 75 percent approval for the project as funded to proceed.

“There is every indication that the legislature intended for activities encompassed by the Sports Authority Act to be identified as a public purpose,” says the appeals court ruling. “Courts are not authorized to consider whether legislation is unwise or inequitable; thus, we cannot consider the wisdom or necessity of the legislature’s policy decisions.”

The court said legislators are entitled to “great deference” and that “the court should not substitute its judgment for that of the legislative body

Categories
Opinion

back to school

At the end of the school year students rally to the cry: “No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks.”

Then, sooner than they can believe, it’s the beginning of the school year. There are no more rallying cries, only gleaming white tennis shoes squeaking on freshly waxed floors, new pencil cases full of sharpened number 2s, and backpacks filled with newly issued textbooks.

College students move into their dorm rooms or apartments, trying to make sure they’ve got just the schedule they want, the one that lets them have Fridays off or no classes in the morning.

But this year will be a little different. Memphis City Schools just completed the largest school construction project in the city’s history and will open nine new schools on August 20th. Tuition for undergrads at the University of Memphis went up 15 percent from last year; 20 percent for grad students. And the Gateway test and the new version of the GED will make getting a high school diploma, or the high school equivalency, a little more difficult.

Staffers Mary Cashiola, Chris Przybyszewski, and Hannah Walton contributed stories on these topics, as well as one on a subject the entire country is talking about because of the First Daughters: underage drinking.

Read on. You might learn something.

Categories
News

JOHN DALY’S ON A ROLL!

John Daly, the sometime Memphis-area resident who was the last major golfing phenom before the advent of Tiger Woods, may have had his troubles with women in the past, but, like other males before him, he’s discovered the truth of the old adage: When it rains, it pours.

This is the man who gained a reputation as his game’s biggest hitter in the ’90s but missed greatness while having problems with alcohol and a difficult first marriage.

He’s a newlywed again, though, and not only does wedlock seem to be treating him better this time, his new wife didn’t even mind when another female – Lady Luck, to be exact – turned up on the honeymoon in Tunica.

Some two weeks ago, the freshly married John and Sherry Daly visited Bally’s and, according to a well-placed source, left with some $700,000 of the casino’s cash.

Whether that was what prompted the gesture or not, another Tunica casino, Horseshoe, has since decided to hold its own wedding reception for The Dalys on the night of August 12th. And if John wants to try his luck afterward, well….We’ll keep you posted on how that visit turns out.

And, who knows? Yesterday, Bally’s. Tomorrow, Hollywood’s. Maybe in the not-too-distant future, it’ll be Augusta, Ga. Another Master’s championship jacket would like nice on Daly if he wants to keep collecting green.

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

Power Hitters

This is what is the matter with baseball.

Cypress is playing Douglass in the RBI League, a summer league
for inner-city kids 14 and under. The temperature on the Cypress Junior High
fields approaches 100 degrees. The Douglass outfielders are standing
listlessly in their dark blue caps and shirts as their coach makes a pitching
change. The scrubs for both sides are wandering off into the shade of the
trees and the water jugs. All the reasons that baseball is dying seem to be
apparent — too little action, too much standing around, too much heat.

Then, just when the game needs a lift, a little-used Cypress
player named Osmany Marshall, a fifth-grader at Klondike Elementary School,
provides it. He lines a shot into left field that deflects off the fielder’s
glove and rolls past him. Osmany rounds second, heads for third, and gets the
windmill sign to keep going. But the leftfielder makes a perfect throw to the
catcher. With coaches and players on both sides screaming, Osmany puts on the
brakes and scrambles back toward third. But the Douglass catcher and third
baseman know what to do and catch him in a rundown. Three, four, five times
they toss the ball back and forth, flawlessly executing a play that even the
better high school teams routinely botch. Finally, one of them holds the ball
an instant too long and Osmany scoots home safe.

The stragglers are back. The outfielders look alive. The game has
been energized by a single play. Under sandlot rules, it’s a home run for
Osmany Marshall and, for this morning at least, for RBI (Returning Baseball to
the Inner-City) baseball.

As the baseball season hits the midway point, the Memphis
Redbirds are on pace to set an attendance record at AutoZone Park. The team is
losing more than last year on the field but drawing better than any team in
the minor leagues. At this pace, some 900,000 tickets will be sold.

Few of those fans will ever see, and many are not even aware of,
the RBI program that is a key part of the Redbirds’ unique organizational
status. RBI and STRIPES, a sports program cosponsored by the Redbirds and the
Memphis City Schools, are the cornerstones of a $72 million stadium financing
plan. Osmany Marshall and his teammates are, in a special way, as essential to
the Redbirds story as founders Dean and Kristi Jernigan.

Special because as nice as it is to see inner-city kids playing
organized ball on a summer morning in Memphis, no other city in the country
has such an arrangement between sports and charity. The Memphis Redbirds
Baseball Foundation is the only nonprofit organization in the U.S. that owns
and operates a team and its playing facility. The unusual arrangement drew the
attention of the Internal Revenue Service. After an audit, the Redbirds agreed
earlier this year to pay the IRS $1.6 million to preserve their tax-exempt
financing.

In a different context, the issue of the public or private nature
of professional sports facilities came up last week in Chancellor Walter
Evans’ ruling against the city and county and HOOPS L.P. in the NBA arena
deal.

Declining interest in baseball, especially among inner-city
youth, is a national phenomenon, if not exactly a national crisis. RBI
baseball was around for several years in Memphis and other cities before the
Redbirds latched onto it. There are actually two organizations in Memphis that
go by the name RBI. The other one, which is for older kids, is called Reviving
Baseball in the Inner-City and has no connection with the Redbirds. Apart from
these groups, churches, the Memphis Housing Authority, and other organizations
promote youth baseball (and other sports) for recreational and competitive
teams. The mainstays include Idlewild Presbyterian Church, Bellevue Baptist
Church, and Nolen Wilson’s Pendleton League at Colonial School, which sponsors
leagues and three summer tournaments for all comers, staffed mainly by
volunteers.

The RBI baseball program differs from these groups in its
marketing power, its financial muscle, and its vital connection to the
Redbirds Foundation’s tax-exempt purpose of “instituting programs to
combat juvenile delinquency.” The kids in the RBI program are balancing a
lucrative, well-staffed, and sophisticated downtown organization on their
narrow shoulders.

Reggie Williams, vice president of community relations for the
Redbirds, says the combined budget this year for RBI and Stripes is $300,000
to $400,000. The RBI program, he says, has expanded from six sites in 1998 to
14 this year, with about 60 kids at each site. The Redbirds buy equipment and
uniforms and pay four coaches at each site $200 to $300 a week. Kroger donates
food and other sponsors have donated books and materials.

One of the Redbirds’ slogans is “Baseball is our business
but the community is our bottom line.” The Redbirds yearbook says
“every cent of profit the Redbirds earn goes back into the charitable
work of this foundation.”

It isn’t clear, however, how much the Redbirds Foundation spends
on program services compared to other expenses of running the front office,
operations, paying off debt on the ballpark, ticket sales, and the Plaza Club
(a taxable subsidiary). Because of the unique financing arrangement, most of
these things fall under the nonprofit umbrella. And their bills get paid
before “profits” go back into inner-city baseball.

The Internal Revenue Service requires public disclosure of
expenses and executive salaries, but the Redbirds have not filed a Form 990
since moving from Tim McCarver Stadium to AutoZone Park, where attendance has
tripled and revenue has exploded. Chief financial officer Marc Greenburg said
the Redbirds requested an extension of time to file their 1999 return, which
covers the 2000 season. On their 1998 form, the most recent available, the
Redbirds Foundation lists salaries of $2 million (not including players, who
are paid by the St. Louis Cardinals, the parent team) and total expenses of
$8.9 million for their last year at Tim McCarver.

Williams, a 1978 graduate of Southside High School, played pro
baseball for the Los Angeles Dodgers. After retirement in 1991, he was
assistant principal at Ridgeway High School and principal at Ridgeway Middle
School.

“Back in the Seventies, WDIA had successful leagues in
Memphis,” he recalls. “The big dropoff in baseball may have come
when the NBA got big with Kareem Jabbar, Magic Johnson, and Michael
Jordan.”

Baseball won’t overtake basketball in popularity, but Williams
would love to see such things as a middle school reading and math curriculum
based on baseball and inner-city fields with dugouts, fenced-in benches,
backstops, neatly cut grass, and carefully lined basepaths.

“It would give the children something to have pride
in,” he says.

Of course he would also like to see more competitive teams like
Fairley High School, which made it to this year’s city championship game and
has sent several players on to college baseball.

“The RBI program is giving them a chance to play,” says
Fairley coach James McNeal, who also coaches the Cypress RBI team. “When
they get to us in high school, they need to know something. You can see them
progress from week to week. And RBI feeds them and gives them reading material
too.”

The success of the Redbirds can be measured in the standings and
at the ticket gate. The success of RBI and the Redbirds Foundation will depend
on how many Osmany Marshalls stay involved with the game and stay in school
five or six years down the road.

You can e-mail John Branston at branston@memphismagazine.com.

Categories
News News Feature

Layoffs? What Layoffs?

The slump in the national economy has had an impact on Memphis companies, but it would take a wizard to decipher some of the corporate-speak that is used to avoid the term “layoffs.”

“I think layoff is one of those terms that has come to be associated with a company in trouble,” says John Malmo, president of Koenig Marketing Consulting. “The whole issue of adding and subtracting jobs has become such an important factor in the way customers, employees, and shareholders react to it that companies have gotten very sophisticated about how they handle the news. They’ve developed a whole new lexicon.”

Sometimes it serves a company’s purposes to look big. Politicians and the Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce like to use big happy numbers because it makes the city (and them) look good.

The chamber’s 2000 Growth Report says the Memphis area added 12,259 jobs through either expansion or relocation. Spokesman Allen Hester says the chamber reports new jobs “when they are announced” even though the jobs may be phased in over a period of years.

Further incentive: boards that give out tax credits, like the Industrial Development Board, base the amount of their largesse on the number and pay of the jobs that the company will create.

Wang’s International, for instance, is listed in the most recent chamber of commerce data as having 1,000 employees. News stories put the maximum number of employees at 800. At any rate, it’s a moot point. The Memphis-headquartered company recently took bankruptcy and the actual number of workers is closer to zero.

At least in that case there was no doubt that jobs were being eliminated. The same can be said for Bartlett-based Brother Industries, which laid off 227 employees and shut its typewriter plant; Cigna, a health care company which went out of business and cut 176 jobs; and computer manufacturer and distributor Ingram Micro, which sliced 140 jobs.

In those cases, the news was so unequivocally bad that there was no hiding the facts. The harder trick is trying to figure out the numbers at big corporations like FedEx, AutoZone, and International Paper. Those companies walk a fine line between balancing corporate morale and pleasing Wall Street.

“Frequently it is good stock news when you read about a company that has cut its workforce by 10 percent or consolidates operations,” says Malmo. “It is not at all unlikely that Wall Street will react favorably to it.”

Last week The Wall Street Journal reported that FedEx “plans to trim its labor force by at least five percent, or more than 9,000 jobs.” The company took exception to that. Spokesman Jesse Bunn says the reporter apparently extrapolated incorrectly from some numbers the company had provided.

The correct number, Bunn says, is 4,000 full-time equivalent positions, and those reductions will be achieved through “very stringent cost-control measures” including a hiring freeze.

“We have reduced full-time equivalents but it hasn’t been through layoffs,” Bunn says.

FedEx, of course, employs thousands of part-time employees among what the chamber reports as a 40,000-person local workforce, so the actual number of people who used to work at FedEx but don’t work there any more or don’t work there as much as they used to is hard to figure.

“The only number we gave out was over 4,000,” says Bunn.

For what it’s worth, the stock rose a couple points last week despite a 54 percent decline in earnings.

AutoZone has also been in the news for reducing its number of stores nationwide by 30 to 60 and cutting some local employees. The most widely reported number was 50.

“There’s really not any big news,” says Emma Jo Kauffman, head of investor relations. “We restructured the way we do things.”

Some AutoZoners who were offered new jobs elected not to take them, she says, adding that the fact that some of the jobs that were “restructured” were in communications may have helped spread the news. Or non-news.

Elsewhere in corporate Memphis, International Paper first announced a major expansion of 950 jobs and construction of a new office tower in Memphis to great acclaim. But several months later it announced it was cutting 300 jobs at its Memphis headquarters as part of a 10 percent reduction in its U.S. workforce.

Contacted by this reporter, a company spokesman first sought clarification from two other IP employees, neither of whom was available. A third contact was still seeking the information at press time.

It is little wonder that the media sometimes seem confused about layoffs. At The Commercial Appeal, there have been rumors of layoffs in the news department but television reporter Les Smith and others trying to check them out have been rebuffed. The shrinking product and proliferation of wire-service copy speak loudly enough.

For the record, The Memphis Flyer never lays off or fires anyone but does exercise rigorous cost controls, restructures when the mood strikes, and is proud to be a player in the bustling Memphis economy.

You can e-mail John Branston at branston@memphismagazine.com.

Categories
News News Feature

THE BOOSTER CLUB

Several weeks ago, Shelby County Commissioner Buck Wellford met with a group of 15 East Memphis Republican women. Their message on the NBA arena: overwhelming opposition.

One week ago, the commission voted 10-2 (Wellford abstained on all NBA votes and debate because his law partner represents NBA NOW) for the new arena in front of a chamber packed with a couple hundred cheering NBA boosters in an apparent show of overwhelming support.

A miraculous turnaround? A seismic shift in sentiment? A grassroots groundswell?

None of the above.

Polls show that Shelby County residents support the NBA arena project by only a narrow margin and that support is hedged by several “only ifs.” The cheering crowd, if not the actual vote, was the product of an NBA-friendly venue and a massive public relations effort by a downtown lobby that has never been stronger. Call it democracy by booster organization.

The gallery was anything but a spontaneous outpouring of support from a cross-section of rabid NBA fans. It consisted mainly of employees of AutoZone, the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Center City Commission, the Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce, Archer/Malmo Advertising, and hired lobbyists and attorneys. On the arena vote, NBA NOW proponents had a bigger advantage than Shaquille O’Neill has over the Lakers ballboy in a game of one-on-one.

First, they had home-field advantage. Many of them simply walked a few hundred yards from their offices on Front Street or on the mall. The opponents had to drive downtown and find a place to park. Boosters got paid to play hooky and sit and watch the politicians work; AutoZoners were urged to attend by company founder Pitt Hyde, a proposed co-owner of the Memphis NBA team. The antis were mainly retirees and housewives such as referendum leader Heidi Shafer, whose 3-year-old daughter sat in the aisle of the commission chambers munching snacks. Finally, the downtown boosters hobnob with councilmen and commissioners at social and political functions all the time – – and with each other, for that matter, often serving on one another’s boards and scratching one another’s backs.

With or without a new arena, Memphis can bury that cliché about turning its back on downtown and the river. The booster business has never been better or more lucrative.

At half a dozen quasi-public or nonprofit agencies, top executives make almost as much or more money pitching downtown attractions and development as Mayors Willie Herenton and Jim Rout make ($140,000) for running the whole city and county.

The list includes the Center City Commission, the Memphis Development Foundation (which runs The Orpheum), the Wonders exhibition, the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Riverfront Development Corporation, and the Memphis Redbirds Foundation.

Those are just the starting players. Bench strength includes the Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce, with offices on Front Street and a staff that has been very much in evidence during the NBA drive; the twin towers, Jack Belz and Henry Turley; corporate benefactors AutoZone and Storage USA; and advertising firms Archer/Malmo, Thompson and Company, and Conaway Brown, all churning out the good news about downtown.

The long, hard hours that Herenton and Rout and their top aides put into endless meetings and negotiations gave new meaning to the words “government service.” For running Wonders, Dick Hackett makes more than he ever did as mayor. Benny Lendermon makes more as head of the Riverfront Development Commission than he did as city public works director watching over our roads and sewers. Dexter Muller, longtime director of the Office of Planning and Development, last year jumped to the chamber of commerce.

Focus, compensation, and a nice office aren’t the only benefits nonprofits can offer. They also operate with much less public scrutiny than their government counterparts. City council members have been ridiculed and taken to task for running up cell phone bills or requesting $75 for out-of-town meal allowance. Nonprofits, on the other hand, are usually accountable only to their boards. A nonprofit agency is supposed to make its tax form and salaries and expenses readily available for public inspection, but the only local media outlet that has ever reported on them is the Flyer.

Ironically, politicians are responsible for helping the nonprofits thrive. They provide facilities like The Orpheum, The Pyramid, and the Memphis Cook Convention Center as well as direct subsidies and dedicated revenue streams via downtown tax credits or tourism taxes.

After last week’s victory at the county commission, the NBA NOW team and its bandwagon adjourned to the Plaza Club for a celebration. The opponents just went home, vowing to fight again on another day, and, they hope, in another court.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Nice Shot

Who knew Jim Rout was such a good closer?

In an hour or so of straight talk with the Shelby County Commission, Rout didn’t use the line, “What’ll it take to put you in this new $250 million NBA arena today?” But if that tire-kicking bunch of commission doubters and naysayers votes yes on the arena next week, as seems likely, then Rout will deserve a lot of the credit.

In 16 years as a commissioner and seven years as mayor, Rout has done his share of ducking and double-talk, but he was about as eloquent as they come Monday, sitting calmly in front of a skeptical board of commissioners. Blessed with the best speechwriter in town, mayoral aide Tom Jones, Rout dropped his prepared remarks several times to make points or answer questions. He never stumbled. He never lectured. He never raised his voice.

You want numbers? He gave them numbers. You want sentiment? He invoked his 82-year-old mother, who was alarmed at first but now thinks her boy is doing the right thing. You want applause lines? He got the admittedly pro-NBA audience clapping twice with lines about AutoZone Park and “a vibrant downtown and a vibrant total community.”

Maybe it was those years as a Xerox salesman way back when in his business career. Maybe it was all the practice he’s had over the last three months of the NBA debate. Or maybe it is just that the job of mayor, like the job of governor, brings out leadership qualities and crystallizes thinking in a way that being a legislator or a commissioner or a councilman doesn’t.

“As a commissioner you might be a little bit for something and a little bit against something,” he said after the four-hour meeting. “As mayor you’ve got to take a side.”

Rout showed a lot of sympathy for commissioners who may well find themselves saying yes to the NBA next week and no to full funding for county schools a week or two later. If the “No Taxes NBA” crowd really wants to turn up the heat, they’ll give up their seats at next week’s commission meeting to county school teachers, principals, and students.

“I have to think about your role,” Rout told the commission, and “the tremendous responsibility you face.”

Does he ever. Thirteen years ago, as a county commissioner, Rout was in the minority that voted against The Pyramid. At the time, hopes were every bit as high for The Pyramid as they are now for the NBA arena. It was the talk of the town. There were comparisons to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. There were blue-chip business leaders like Fred Smith pushing the deal. Sidney Schlenker, the promoter who often gets blamed for The Pyramid’s shortcomings, was not yet in the picture. He came later. There were no easy excuses for voting no, but Rout did. The Pyramid, he said, was not part of his vision for a better Memphis.

Eight years ago Rout was a commissioner planning a race for mayor when the city and county political leadership sent Smith, Billy Dunavant, and Pitt Hyde to the NFL meetings in Chicago in search of an expansion franchise, armed with a $25 million retrofit of Liberty Bowl Stadium to compete against new or like-new stadiums in Charlotte, Jacksonville, and St. Louis.

Well visions change, for mayors just like for the rest of us.

If the county commission follows the lead of the city council and approves funding for the NBA arena, Rout will have left a lasting mark on both downtown and suburbia. In addition to the arena, he was an early backer of boyhood friend Dean Jernigan’s downtown plans for AutoZone Park when there was a real possibility of building a new baseball stadium on Germantown Road.

Rout is also, in the opinion of suburban developer Jackie Welch, the main force behind Cordova High School, the Grey’s Creek sewer extension, and Welch’s highly successful career as a school site salesman for Shelby County.

“Every time I sold a school site, I called and thanked Commissioner Rout for having the foresight,” Welch said recently in an interview for Memphis magazine.

It’s interesting that Rout has a well-earned reputation as a details man, stemming from his years as chairman of the commission’s budget committee, his talkative nature, and his willingness to dive into piles of research material. Now he’s the visionary on two of the biggest and toughest issues facing public officials. There are plenty of pitfalls ahead, before and after the actual votes on the arena and funding for schools. But judging by his performance this week, Rout seems comfortable at last in his not-so-new role as leader.

You can e-mail John Branston at branston@memphismagazine.com.

Categories
Cover Feature News

The Man Behind the News

Reporters and editors, newspapers and newsmakers, judges and bad guys, politicians and prosecutors — they come and go in Memphis. Richard Fields endures.

For three decades, most of it as a civil rights lawyer, Fields has influenced the way Memphians hold elections, treat jail inmates, educate children, allocate property taxes, build public housing, sell cars, promote firemen, and run day-care centers.

Memphians like to talk about bridging the gap between the black and white communities. Ladies and gents, behold the human bridge.

He’s a 53-year-old, California-born-and-bred, Stanford-educated sole practitioner who lives alone (unless you count the pet rooster) in the historic Wright Carriage House in Victorian Village. His father was a winemaker. He’s partial to jeans, cowboy boots, and loud open-necked shirts. He sports a gray beard and a ponytail. He can speed-dial most of the important politicians, judges, civil rights figures, and reporters in Memphis. His fingerprints, not to mention his quotes, both attributed and unattributed, are all over scores of front-page stories. He was one of the first white men in Memphis to be legally married to a black woman. The marriage didn’t take. Neither did the next three.

In other words, about as typically Memphis as your average purple snow-capped mountain.

Shown a partial list of his cases over the years, Fields studies it for a moment, nods, and then puts it down with a shrug: “I know a lot of people in Memphis.”

Fields came here in 1969 to work for the Teacher Corps at Georgia Avenue Elementary, an inner-city school. It was the year after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Not a good time, for sure, but a time of opportunity just the same, with liberals, blacks, Jews, and women coming to the fore and making their marks (Fields was raised Lutheran).

“I never thought I’d be doing this when I graduated from college,” he says.

Two events were formative.

He married a black woman at St. Thomas Catholic Church, something taboo and even illegal in parts of the Old South. The marriage, he says, “gave me a different perspective than a lot of people.”

In the fall of 1969, to press their demands for representation on the all-white school board, black leaders organized “Black Mondays” demonstrations. More than 60,000 students and 600 teachers skipped school. The only white teacher was Richard Fields. The only principal was Willie Herenton.

It proved to be a good career move for both of them. Herenton rose through the ranks to become superintendent, with the support of the Memphis NAACP. Fields left teaching for law school at the University of Tennessee, then returned to Memphis in 1976 to work in an integrated civil rights law firm with the late Marvin Ratner and Russell Sugarmon. He immediately went to work on high-profile school desegregation cases, one of which involved Shelby County and is still very much alive today.

Jimmy Carter was elected president that year. One of the things he did was appoint more black judges than his predecessors had. Blacks were still in the minority in Memphis, but by 1980 they had won some judgeships, school board seats, and the superintendent’s job. It was a good time and place for a young civil rights lawyer to start his career.

Through thick and thin, Fields hitched his wagon to Herenton’s star. They did not always agree. Fields was the unbending idealist. Herenton was the embattled pragmatist. One thing they split on was busing.

“When I was superintendent, I did not want segregated schools, but we reached a point where in my opinion busing had run its course,” recalls Herenton. “My position was, ‘Gentlemen, let’s call a truce. Busing has not worked.’ Richard was adamant that I was trying to return the public schools to segregation.”

Fields stood by him as friend and personal attorney when Herenton weathered a scandal involving a relationship with a former teacher, Mahnaz Bahrmand. When Herenton ran for mayor in 1991, Fields and Dr. Harry Moore, a liberal preacher, were the only two prominent whites to publicly support him. Herenton’s 142-vote margin and 49 percent of the vote would have thrown him into a runoff but for a landmark federal court lawsuit pressed by Fields, the NAACP, and others and resolved that year.

“Dr. Herenton,” he says, “has been absolutely a godsend to Memphis.”

And to Richard Fields. Backing Willie Herenton in 1991 was a little like buying stock in AOL at $10 a share. Herenton has been mayor for 10 years and counting and shows no signs of giving up the job. Fields has been there to hold his coat. He has been, at various times, the mayor’s personal lawyer, political adviser, schools liason, and spin-master on issues ranging from the 1999 mayoral election to the controversial firing of a police lieutenant to the proposed NBA arena.

“I give him advice when he seeks it,” says Fields.

Fields’ law practice, meanwhile, has ranged far and wide.

“My theory of law,” he says, “is do as many cases as you can that involve the broadest impact.”

What sets him apart from other busy lawyers is not only the nature of his cases but also his media connections, particularly with The Commercial Appeal and this newspaper. It would be nearly impossible to have been a beat reporter in Memphis over the past 25 years without crossing paths with Fields in the state or federal courts or at the city or county school board. Approachable and savvy, he is often a source for newspaper reporters and helps “spin” or influence their stories. What appears to be reportorial research is sometimes, on closer inspection, a repackaging of Fields’ research, briefs, depositions, or the comments of his clients or associates.

In newspaper terminology, he can set the agenda, often by merely filing a lawsuit. For example, “Fired officer sues for $6 million” was the headline for a front-page story in The Commercial Appeal on Harold Hays and the sheriff’s department in 1996. Typically, the party being sued, the sheriff’s department in this case, declined comment. The attention-grabbing $6 million figure, as is often the case in such lawsuits, was mainly window dressing; the lawsuit was settled for $650,000.

“I certainly don’t control the media,” says Fields. “I think I have credibility with the media, but that is partly the nature of the cases.”

A computer search of stories about Richard Fields turned up over 200 articles from The Commercial Appeal over the last decade, which is as far back as such searches go for that newspaper. The majority of them ran on the front page or the front of the Metro page. Some led to whole series. A partial list (see “Richard Fields’ Greatest Hits,” page 19): sales practices at Covington Pike Toyota, Cherokee Day Care, the Shelby County Jail, school desegregation, and corruption in the sheriff’s department. Some of the reporters who used to write about him are now the editors who make the decisions about where the stories run, including the CA’s Metro editor Charles Bernsen and deputy managing editor Otis Sanford.

In The Memphis Flyer, in the last year alone, Fields has been a key source for cover stories about the jail, foster children, and public housing.

A publicist who got a fraction of that attention for a client would be hailed as a genius. With local news increasingly displacing national and international news in newspapers and television newscasts, Fields highlights the uneasy working relationship between lawyers, who are hired advocates, and reporters, who are supposed to be objective. Each side gets something. Publicity can help a lawyer get business, especially if class-action status is sought, or pressure the other side to make a settlement, as in Fields’ lawsuit this year against Bud Davis Cadillac. The reporter gets a story with a crusading bent, news appeal, and gritty details that might have been mined by the reporter or might have been handed over by the lawyer.

Editors at The Commercial Appeal declined to comment for this story.

Sometimes Fields is on the side of the angels. He handled a case for low-income homeowners against former assessor Michael Hooks and won more than $3 million but took no fee. Other cases, however, have a distinct political angle, often against members of the Ford family, who happen to be the main rivals of Mayor Herenton.

In the Cherokee Day Care case, Fields said state senator John Ford conspired with operators to steer state funds to Cherokee. The case was hobbled by an unfavorable ruling in federal court, but there is a separate grand jury probe on similar issues. Fields himself was going to become a day-care broker consultant for Herenton, who had plans for the city to become the state’s day-care broker in Shelby County. The broker system was scrapped instead. As a lawyer, campaign adviser, and media contact, Fields did all he could to keep the story alive during the 1999 mayoral election when Herenton ran against Joe Ford.

Also during that campaign, Fields was wearing his “campaign attorney” hat when, in the words of The Commercial Appeal, he “drafted an official complaint” to the Shelby County Election Commission about certain actions of campaign workers for candidate Joe Ford. Sounds mighty serious. In plain language, Fields didn’t do squat. But this dog-bites-man fluff got prominent coverage that helped keep Ford on the defensive.

Fields’ favorite whipping boy is Sheriff A.C. Gilless and the Shelby County Jail. Since 1993 he has won seven settlements and judgments against the department totaling $2.43 million. He (and co-counsel in five of the cases) got about 30 percent of that. Another jail inmate suit seeking $20 million is pending. Gilless did not return calls seeking comment.

“I’m not a self-promoter, but certain exposure helps the public understand what kind of issues I deal with and what solutions I hope for,” Fields says. “I give the reporters facts and expect them to investigate fully.”

Not everyone does. This newspaper was burned recently when it failed to distinguish between monetary amounts sought and amounts actually paid in jail cases.

And not everyone likes what they see either. Even Herenton says, “A lot of my friends don’t understand my friendship with Richard because he irritates the hell out of them.” WREG-TV Channel 3 reporter Mike Matthews, a tough questioner of Herenton, is one reporter Fields won’t talk to because he thinks Matthews tries to embarrass the mayor.

Fields used Black Monday-style tactics against automobile dealers Bud Davis Cadillac and Covington Pike Toyota on behalf of black employees, or “our guys,” as he calls them. Kent Ritchey, general manager of Covington Pike Toyota, told The Commercial Appeal the picketing was aimed at “maximizing settlement opportunities.” Contacted by the Flyer, Ritchey declined to comment about Fields. Bud Davis also declined comment.

Fields says fair is fair. The car dealers, he says, launched their own “preemptive publicity” aimed at polishing their image. He does not plan to let up.

Last week Fields got a phone call as he posed for a picture for this story. The Covington Pike Toyota story had attracted some national interest. It seems Memphis might be getting a visit from Jesse Jackson. Fields tucked his cell phone back in his pocket and grinned.

You can e-mail John Branston at branston@memphismagazine.com.

Richard Fields’ Greatest Hits

Michael Hooks Sr.

Inequities in residential reappraisal, 1992-2001. “It was difficult because I had to sue Michael Hooks as assessor and I was friends with him. My clients were the poorest of the poor. Michael should have done it himself.”

Memphis Housing Authority, 1992-2001: “If there was ever a plantation system, MHA was it. They’re on the right track now, but basically they need to tear down all public housing and create mixed middle-income housing like what’s planned for Greenlaw and LeMoyne Gardens.”

Harold Hays (whistleblower in sheriff’s department), 1996-1999: “The best client I ever had and, ironically, the most establishment. His ethics were unquestionable.”

Mayoral election, 1991: “I was one of Dr. Herenton’s original white supporters and encouraged him to run. His comment was, ‘But I’m not a politician.’ I said, ‘That’s good.'”

Mayoral election, 1999: “I made sure the day-care issue got emphasized as a real scandal for this city.”

W.W. Herenton

Mahnaz Bahrmand, (former MCS teacher who sued then-Superintendent Herenton over a love affair), 1989: “Dr. Herenton came out of that with a true understanding of who his friends were and weren’t. Beyond that, it was private, and that’s all I’m going to say.”

Cherokee Day Care, 1999-2001: “An unbelievable scandal involving black entrepreneurs engaged in a corrupt scheme to the disadvantage of poor children and their parents.”

Tennessee foster children, 2000-2001: “One of the finest consent decrees I have seen in my life. It affects children most in need.”

School desegregation, 1976-2001: “As a former teacher with a master’s degree in education, I had to do those cases. Education is the most important issue in the city right now. Along with the Legal Defense Fund, I will continue to pursue the Shelby County school desegregation case which dates back to 1961.”

Memphis elections and local and state redistricting, 1991-1997: “I was the lawyer for the NAACP on the runoff provision in city elections. You know, I had forgotten about that one.”

John Ford

McKinney Truse (a low-income East Memphis neighborhood leveled for a Home Depot), 1987-1997: “A crowning moment in my career. We had to find 300 people all over the world and keep them together for 10 years. We won $9 million from Home Depot. Our fee was 9 percent over 10 years. We didn’t even make our hourly rate.”

Shelby County Jail, 1991-2001: “One of the true scandals of the Eighties and Nineties. Until Judge McCalla came along, no one was willing to deal with it in a systematic fashion, and nobody but Harold Hays was willing to speak out against the corruption in the sheriff’s department.”

Sales practices at Covington Pike Toyota, 2001: “It took guts for The Commercial Appeal to run that story about an advertiser.”

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Random Thoughts

I was just wondering:

In the locker room at the Racquet Club Sunday, the NBA playoffs were on the big-screen television most of the afternoon. I ducked in three times. Not a single person watching. Yes, it was Mothers’ Day. Yes, it was a beautiful day outside. Yes, people were playing tennis, golf, working in their yards, or doing something else. Isn’t that the point?

· We don’t know exactly where the money to build a new arena and keep it running will come from, but we sure know where most of it will go: to player salaries. We’re bringing a corporation to town with fewer than 50 employees. The 12 highest-paid employees make from $1 million to upwards of $7 million a year. All of the rest combined make less than the highest-paid player. Maybe the players will live in Memphis and maybe they won’t. This is economic impact?

· For $250 million, why doesn’t Memphis just go out and buy someone else’s corporate headquarters, build them an office at Shelby Farms, and get 1,000 jobs instead of 50?

· There’s a new book about casino gambling called The Money and the Power: The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America, 1947-2000. It is righteously anti-gambling, dismissing it as a corrupt, wasteful pastime for suckers. Why does a business that spends billions in a state like Mississippi, creates thousands of jobs, discloses its finances, asks for few public incentives (the Tunica jet airport boondoggle is a glaring exception) get vilified, while pro sports get a free ride?

The Money and the Power discloses that slot machines are sucker games, weighted in favor of the house. Where did I first read this shocking indictment? Let’s see, oh yes, it was the 1995 Promus annual report, which said 70 percent of the company’s profits came from the Harrah’s division, and 80 percent of casino profits come from slots and low-dollar blackjack.

I have been to Tunica close to 100 times since Splash opened years ago, usually as a reporter, sometimes as a gambler, often just to gawk. The image of slot players as dumb suckers seems as false to me as the beautiful, giddy models in casino ads. I think it has something to do with a bias against people who wear ballcaps and bermuda shorts and have varicose veins.

· What do you call someone who goes to the casinos 45 times a year, spending $50 to $75 each time, or $2,250 to $3,375 a year? A compulsive gambler. What do you call someone who goes to an NBA game 45 times a year, spending $50 to $75 each time? A season-ticket holder.

· Few businesses are more secretive about their finances than the NBA. Want to know what Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley made in total compensation last year, or what the team made, or how that much-quoted figure of $45 million in losses was arrived at? Good luck. Want to know what the head of any public corporation made last year, or how many shares he owns, or where the cash flow went? You’ll need a little patience and a good pair of eyeglasses, but it’s all in the public documents.

· Is there anything more annoyingly simple-minded than those “I Want My NBA Now” commercials?

· Which is more intelligent and thoughtful: the naysayer-NBA letters to the editor or the PR agency-driven NBA hype?

· Weren’t you sort of proud of the television reporters who badgered Michael Heisley with tough questions when he tried to make a feel-good appearance at Neely’s Barbecue a couple weeks ago?

· Has there been a more stunning political transformation than former mayor Dick Hackett, friend of the little guy, to Dick Hackett, NBA booster (from the safe confines of DeSoto County)?

· Staley Cates, one of the proposed co-owners of the Memphis Grizzlies, made a fantastic presentation last week at the Longleaf Partners annual meeting at Memphis Botanic Garden. Cates runs one of the mutual funds. It was straightforward, totally devoid of hype or jargon, and full of common sense. You left the meeting wanting to buy more shares. Cates and his partner Mason Hawkins treated shareholders like intelligent but demanding partners. Isn’t that what the NBA skeptics want? Why Cates & Co. are being so secretive about their part in the NBA is one for Ripley’s.

· Longleaf’s investment principles are: price-to-value ratio and no more than 20 holdings in any fund. Cates and Hawkins said they hear only two or three really good investment ideas a year. They reject 99 out of 100, often because they admit they don’t really understand the business or they don’t like the management. Their funds returned an average of 25 percent from April 2000 to April 2001. Wouldn’t you like to hear these guys make the case for the NBA?

· On the other hand, maybe the NBA wouldn’t fare so badly in a price-to-value analysis. The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that confidential NFL documents reveal that pro football, at least, is a “robust enterprise that gets more so each year as team after team moves into new or renovated stadiums, many paid for by taxpayers.” The Cleveland Browns, the worst team in the NFL, made a $36 million profit in its first year thanks to a new publicly funded stadium. The new NFL franchise in Houston, former home of the Tennessee Titans, went for $700 million in 1999 a 47 percent increase in the asset value of the Cleveland franchise, which went for $476 million in 1998. ·

You can e-mail John Branston at branston@memphismagazine.com.